Catherine Nettleton CMG OBE
RUSI Senior Associate Fellow
Biography
Catherine Nettleton is a former British diplomat, who has worked in leadership roles in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in London and in the UK's overseas diplomatic network.
She has specialised in the Far East and Latin America. She was trained in Mandarin early in her career and her first overseas posting was as Vice Consul in Beijing. She returned to Beijing as Counsellor (Political/Economic) in 2000-2003. She was posted to Mexico in the 1990s, and was later Her Majesty's Ambassador to Peru (2006-2010) and Her Majesty's Ambassador to Venezuela (2010-2014), before being appointed as the UK's Representative in Taiwan (2016-2020).
Her roles in London have focussed on multilateral matters, including European Union and trade policy, coordination of the UK's role in the G7, and the United Nations, including security issues. She led a large team working on the delivery of the UK Presidencies of the G7 and EU in 2005, was Director of Protocol in 2015, and was Director COVID-19 in 2021-2022.